Perfect Nightmare

by John Saul

  “She doesn’t belong,” the other voice—the voice inside him—said. “She shouldn’t be here, and neither should you. Go back to sleep and let me do what we want to do. Go back to sleep, and I will make everything all right. And no one will ever tell.”

  Tell? Tell what? He shoved Kara aside and twisted his head as she crumpled to the floor. Then, for an instant, it seemed that the hand covering his eyes fell away, and he saw the girl sprawled out on the table, lying on her back, staring up at him with terrified eyes.

  Why?

  Why was she afraid of him?

  Then he saw the girl in the chair, the girl whose head was lolling over, the girl who wasn’t moving at all.

  And another one.

  A young woman, who looked familiar. She was bound to one of the little chairs—the chairs Claire and her friends had sat in when they were children.

  When they were children, and they’d brought him in here, and—

  The vision of what had happened here so many years ago began to take shape in his mind, and he wanted to turn away, to disappear back into the cradling arms of unconsciousness, where the terrible memories of the past could do him no harm.

  “That’s right,” the voice in his head urged him. “Go to sleep, Patrick. Let me deal with it. I dealt with it then, and I’ve dealt with it all our life and I will deal with it now. And you won’t be any part of it. Not any part of it at all!”

  As the voice whispered to him, and Patrick felt the bliss of unconsciousness wrap him in its comforting darkness, he was barely aware of yanking from the wall the heavy iron poker that Kara Marshall had swung at him a moment earlier.

  Kara could hear Patrick’s voice, but the words made no sense. Who was he talking to? Since he’d let her tumble to the floor, he hadn’t looked at her. Now, with the poker gripped in his right hand, he was gazing around the room as if he didn’t know where he was. And when he spoke, the words didn’t make any sense. Deal with what? What was he talking about?

  Then she saw something in his eyes change, and it was as if she was looking at a completely different person. This wasn’t the Patrick Shields she knew. This wasn’t the man who had been at her side so much of the last two weeks, lending her the strength to cope with everything that had happened to her. His features were the same, but this wasn’t Patrick. It couldn’t be!

  “Patrick!” she screamed again. “Patrick, for God’s sake, help us! Help me!”

  The face looming above her winced as if something had struck it, and then she saw something different in the eyes again.

  She saw Patrick. . . .

  As Kara’s voice pulled him back again from the brink of the blissful oblivion of unconsciousness, Patrick saw the macabre scene around him in terrible clarity, but this time he shut out the dark whisperings inside his head and let the images—and the memories they called up—speak for themselves.

  The memories he’d buried so deep and for so long that he’d forgotten they were there suddenly leaped up at him, dancing and weaving in the flickering candlelight in a dark ballet he wished he could turn away from but knew he could not.

  In his mind, he went back to the last birthday party he could remember being held in this playhouse. He’d been six, and his real birthday party—the one his mother held for him—had ended hours ago. He’d been in his room when Claire came to tell him she had a special present for him—a present she and her best friend had in the playhouse.

  He’d followed her eagerly, wondering what the present was, and when they were in the playhouse, there were candles burning.

  Just like now.

  And Claire’s friend had been lying on the table.

  Just like Lindsay Marshall was lying on the table now.

  “We’re going to play house,” Claire explained as she locked the door with the key, then put the key in her pocket. “Only we’re going to play it the way real grown-ups play it.”

  He hadn’t understood at first, but then, when Claire started taking his clothes off, he began to understand.

  Then Claire started touching him, and so did her friend, and then—

  He didn’t want to remember any more of it, didn’t want to remember all the things they’d done to him, the way they’d tied him to the table so he couldn’t fight back, or even move. It wasn’t just his arms and legs they’d tied. No. They’d tied thick twine in places they shouldn’t have touched him, and then pulled it tight.

  So tight he could still feel the agony in his groin.

  But they hadn’t stopped even then.

  They’d put things in him, too—a broom handle and pop bottles and—

  He wanted to shut it out, but he couldn’t. As the terrible memories of what had happened in the playhouse so many years ago—not only on his birthday, but so many times afterward—began to unwind in his mind, Patrick felt his sanity beginning to unwind as well. And now the voice was whispering in his mind again, telling him things he didn’t want to hear. But he could no more stop listening to it than he could stop remembering everything that had happened now that the memories had returned. “We liked it,” the voice whispered. “Didn’t we like it?”

  “No!” Patrick howled. “It was wrong! It was all wrong!”

  “But we didn’t stop!”

  “She made me,” Patrick whimpered, cowering back from the kaleidoscope of images and memories that were not only all around him, but exploding in his mind as well. “Claire made me! She and—”

  “We liked it!” the voice screamed. “We loved it!”

  “It was wrong!” Patrick howled. “Mommy should have—”

  “ ‘Mommy’ didn’t care,” the voice snarled. “Look at her—she’s sitting right there, but she’s not doing anything, is she? She’s just smiling and being happy!”

  The voice was right! The woman bound to the chair, who looked almost exactly like his mother when he’d been a little boy, was just watching silently, smiling at what was happening.

  But she wasn’t smiling, not really! The smile was just painted onto the tape that covered her mouth.

  “Kill her,” the voice in his head commanded. “She wouldn’t help you then, so kill her. Kill her now!”

  Patrick’s fingers tightened on something in his hand, and he looked down curiously at the poker he was gripping. Where had it come from?

  “Patrick! Why are you doing this?”

  He looked down at the woman on the floor. What was she doing here? Her face seemed vaguely familiar, but in the confusion whirling in his mind, he couldn’t quite place her. Was she a friend of his parents?

  Or had Claire brought her?

  But it didn’t matter who she was—if she was a friend of Claire's, she was going to do the same terrible things to him that Claire and Susanna did, and even if she didn’t, she would know.

  She would know all the terrible things that had happened.

  He raised the poker high.

  “Patrick, listen to me!” the woman on the floor shouted. “It’s Kara!”

  Kara . . . Kara . . . Kara. The name echoed through Patrick’s mind and seemed to bounce off the walls of the tiny playhouse. Suddenly he felt as if he were suffocating. The ceiling was way too low, and there wasn’t enough air, and there were too many candles, too much fire.

  Too much fire, like—

  Now a new memory burst out of his subconscious.

  Last Christmas, in the house in Vermont, the house that had burned.

  And now, in the flickering glow of the candlelit playhouse, he could see it all. His girls—Jenna and Chrissie. In their rooms, lying in their beds, deep in sleep. He’d stood at their doors watching them in the moonlight as they slept.

  “We had to do it,” the voice whispered in his head. “They were going to tell on us. They were going to tell their mother what we were doing to them—”

  “Not us!” Patrick bellowed as the full memory of what he’d done to his daughters exploded in his mind. “You! It was you!”

  “I am you!” the voice taunted.
“I’ve always been you, doing all the things you wanted to do but were too afraid to do! You’re a coward, Patrick! You’ve always been a coward!”

  And finally all the confusion in his mind cleared away, and the playhouse seemed to fade around him. He was back in Vermont, watching as his house and his family were consumed by flames.

  Flames from the fire he himself had set.

  Flames that had been smoldering inside him ever since he was a boy, and Claire had brought him here, and his nightmare had begun.

  His perfect nightmare.

  A nightmare so perfect he’d shut it out completely, even while he’d lived it.

  All because of—

  “We have to kill them,” the voice commanded him. “If we don’t, they’re going to tell, just like Jenna and Chrissie were going to tell! We have to, Patrick! Do it!”

  Patrick raised the poker high, its spur hovering over the head of the woman on the floor.

  “Kill her!” the voice howled.

  And the poker started its downward arc . . .

  “Patrick!” Kara tried to scuttle away, but there was no place to go—she was already pressed against the wall. But as the poker moved toward her, she lunged away, and it slammed into the playhouse’s miniature sideboard instead of her head. As the sideboard shattered, the candles it had supported flew across the room, hot wax spattering everywhere. Patrick raised the poker and swung again, but again Kara ducked away, lurching against the table. More candles crashed to the floor, and now the thick paper covering the windows caught fire, and as the flames began to spread, Patrick paused in his flailing, staring mutely at the growing blaze. Then his eyes shifted to Kara. His lips were working, but the confusion of words that had been pouring from his lips stopped.

  “I loved them,” he whispered, his eyes still on Kara. “Believe me. I loved them.” Then, as the flames seemed to reach toward him, Patrick Shields vanished through the trapdoor in the playhouse floor.

  As Lindsay screamed in terror, Kara tore at the tape that bound Ellen to the chair, ripping at it with her fingernails until finally one foot came free. Then she went to work on one of her daughter’s wrists, until finally Lindsay was able to jerk her hand loose, roll onto her side and, with her free hand, tear away the tape that bound the other hand. Kara dropped down to the floor to untape the woman’s legs.

  “I’ll do that,” Lindsay yelled, jerking her other hand free and ripping the tape from her wrist. “Put out the fire!”

  But the fire was now engulfing the tiny chamber.

  Patrick shambled through the tunnel, the poker still clutched in his hand, the memories of everything he’d done threatening to overwhelm him with every step, to push him over into an insanity from which he knew he would never recover.

  Nor even want to recover.

  But not yet . . . not yet.

  Not quite yet.

  The tunnel seemed to go on forever, but then he came to the door at the other end, and found himself gazing at Neville Cavanaugh.

  For a moment the two men stared at each other blankly, then Neville reflexively stepped back. “Mr. Shields, what are you—” he began. Then he heard screams echo through the tunnel and saw the yellowish glow of fire piercing the blackness at the far end. “Dear God, what have you done!” he cried as the shouts echoing in the tunnel grew louder. Seeing the insanity in his employer’s eyes, he took another step back.

  “Not me!” Patrick howled. Blindly, he raised the poker and slashed it down, sinking its iron spur deep into Neville Cavanaugh’s skull. “Not me,” he said again, his voice breaking. “It was never me.”

  Stepping over Neville’s body, he lurched across the concrete floor of the basement and staggered up the stairs, into the library, then out through the open door to the terrace.

  For a moment he stood perfectly still, gazing out over the broad lawn that swept down to the water. Off to the left he could barely make out the shape of the mausoleum, which was almost hidden by the smoke curling out from the playhouse.

  He dropped the bloody poker on the flagstones, and the last details of the nightmare he’d suppressed for so long came starkly into focus.

  It hadn’t been a nightmare at all.

  It had all been real, and now he remembered.

  He remembered everything.

  He looked one last time at the playhouse, where flames were leaking out around the plywood he’d long ago nailed over the windows.

  Then he turned away.

  There was one last thing he had to do.

  Chapter Fifty-three

  The tires of the Mercedes-Benz shrieked in protest as Patrick hurled the big car through the curves of the winding roads that would take him to his destination. The only car he met along the way pulled off to the side long before he tore past it, and he was barely aware of the driver’s blast of a protesting horn. As he negotiated one turn after another, some small part of his mind guided him along the route as the rest of his consciousness tried to cope with the memories that were still boiling up from his subconscious. His rage and his horror at all the things that had happened kept growing, building upon themselves, until not only his mind, but his whole body, felt as if it might explode.

  By the time he slewed the car into the long driveway that led to Claire’s house, tears were streaming down his face and his throat hurt from the howls of anguish and fury that had filled the car during the short drive. The car lost traction on the gravel drive as he slammed on the brakes, spun around, and came to a stop with its rear end laying waste to more than half of the rose garden that had been Claire’s pride and joy for more than a decade.

  Giving the horn three long blasts, then adding two more to be certain Claire would wake up if she was asleep, he got out of the car. Leaving its lights on, the engine running, and the driver’s door open, he took the steps to the broad porch of the big shingled cottage in two quick strides and a moment later was punching at the doorbell, then pounding on the door. After what seemed an eternity but couldn’t have been more than a few seconds, he stepped back and bellowed his sister’s name. “Wake up, God damn you!” he shouted into the faint light of a false dawn. “Get down here and open the door!”

  He was about to resume his pounding when the porch light flashed on. Then the door opened and his sister appeared, clutching her robe close around her neck.

  “Patrick?” she said, appearing confused. “Patrick, what’s wrong? My God, do you know what time it is?”

  Instead of answering, he shoved through the door, catching Claire off balance and making no move to catch her before she tumbled to the floor. He towered over her, his face scarlet with rage, his eyes glazed, his body quivering.

  “Patrick,” Claire gasped, instinctively trying to pull herself away from him before she got up. “What are you—”

  His right foot lashed out, catching her just below her left breast. “I killed them!” he roared. “I killed them myself!”

  As the pain from the kick slashed through her, Claire scrambled away and got to her feet. “What are you talking about?” she gasped, pressing her hand against her chest and bending over against the pain.

  “Renee!” Patrick howled. “And Jenna, and Chrissie, and that girl, and—” His voice broke, he choked on his own sob, but then he went on. “How many others?” he demanded. “How many?”

  Claire stared at him, trying to fathom what he was talking about. Then the light from the chandelier caught his eyes and she saw the insanity that gripped him. Shifting her gaze away, she scanned the foyer, searching for something—anything—with which to defend herself.

  There was nothing.

  “Patrick, calm down,” she said, backing away as he moved toward her. “Tell me what—”

  “You know what!” he roared. “How could you do it? I was a little boy! What kind of monster are you? I was only six! That very day, I turned six, and you and—” His voice broke and he reached toward her.

  Claire’s eyes narrowed as it finally became clear, and she took anothe
r backward step. “Patrick, slow down. All that was years ago and—”

  But Patrick didn’t want to slow down. He wanted to hurt Claire the way she’d hurt him. He moved closer, close enough to see the fear in her eyes.

  The fear and something else.

  Guilt. It was in her eyes, and the knowledge that she knew exactly why he was here further fueled his rage.

  Claire turned then and ran, darting up the stairs, her bathrobe streaming behind her.

  Patrick bolted after her, stumbling on the staircase, then regaining his balance and charging up again.

  Claire got to the master bedroom and tried to close the door, but he was right behind her and shoved his way into the room. She backed up again; the fear in her eyes had turned to abject terror.

  “It was only a game,” she said, searching for something that might mollify her brother. “We were just playing a game! We were children—”

  “It wasn’t a game,” he said, his eyes bleak and his voice harsh. “It was sex, Claire. It was sex and torture! You tortured a little boy, Claire. A little boy who was your own brother!”

  Once again Claire’s eyes darted around the room, this time searching for a means of escape. But there was no escape, not without getting past Patrick, and he was too big, and too strong.

  Far bigger and stronger than he’d been back then, all those years ago, in the playhouse.

  And now he was furious, too.

  Turn it back, she told herself. Make him think it was his fault. “You wanted to do it,” she hissed. “You liked it, Patrick. You loved it! And you were lucky Father never found out—if I’d told him you raped me, he’d have killed you!”

  Ignoring her words, he moved closer.

  Claire turned, scrambled across the bed, and fumbled with the nightstand drawer. “Get away from me, Patrick,” she said, trying to keep her terror out of her voice. “I’m warning you—”

  But it was already too late. Lunging at the bed, he threw himself on top of her, then twisted her around so she was lying on her back, his legs straddling her, his weight pinning her to the mattress. She kicked and struggled as she kept reaching for the drawer in the nightstand, but it was useless.